'Love's Labor's' gets lost along the way in South Bend

Summer Shakespeare fest already has the feel of fall

August 25, 2007|By Chris Jones, Tribune theater critic

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Unlike most summer Shakespeare festivals, the one in South Bend unspools as warm-weather laziness gets swallowed by autumnal responsibility. Transition surely hung in the air Thursday night at the University of Notre Dame, what with leaves in premature fall colors and uncertain incoming freshmen (and their worried parents) dodging dangerous campus storms to head to their first university event.

An ideal climate, then, for "Love's Labor's Lost," a young person's play that begins with a group of well-heeled academicians putting away the frivolous chasing of women and planning instead to concentrate on their studies. There's the period-apt hint of a tongue-in-cheek warning for all young Fighting Irish to beware the bells of St. Mary's College.

In Jay Paul Skelton's quite opulent (and mercifully indoor) "Summer Shakespeare" production -- which features a professional cast of mostly Chicago actors -- the foliage has already turned and the impressive Marcus Stephens' lush setting feels, well, like a nice Midwestern outdoor spot in the early fall, a hundred years or more ago.

The show has been shrewdly cast and starts off well. Monet Butler, an elegant young performer, plays the Princess of France and keeps the spunky Bethany Caputo (the recent star of the Court Theatre's "Arcadia") in order. Led by Kevin Asselin, the young men are elegant and articulate, with Kareem Bandealy an especially appealing Berowne who, of course, prefers Caputo's Rosaline to anything in a book. Even the incomparable Mike Nussbaum -- still packing his trunk for summer stock -- is on hand as Boyet, smiling over everyone, like a kindly if somewhat pugnacious emeritus professor who understands the inevitable fusion of study, love and loss. The kids still have to learn.

Skelton finds that aptly resonant emotional mood again at the show's visually and musically beautiful close. But in the middle, the show loses its way.

Much of the midsection of "Love's Labor's Lost" is made up of rustic comedy, presenting several tricky problems. You have to make it funny. But you also have to keep an audience aware of its context within the play's overall plot about the muddle of maturity.

Skelton has some accomplished comics, including Joseph Wycoff, Bradley Mott and Ron Rains, but I didn't find their business all that amusing here. It's all much too slow and predictable -- the pauses in the shtick could accommodate several of the rain-spewing semis I encountered on the tollway home. And, more troubling yet, it bulges through the disappearing outer frame, meaning the show lacks shape and an overall narrative drive. In fairness, managing that fusion is a tough assignment with this play, especially when you're making so few cuts in the text.

All in all, Skelton has skillfully found the right mood and context for his show but hasn't persuaded his actors to sufficiently raise the stakes of life. That's a pity. A lot rests on every fall in South Bend.